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Saturday, May 19, 2018

Well, that was pretty darn nice. 11 strikeouts with 2 hits given up and no earned runs was put forth by emerging Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Nick Pivetta on Wednesday and the splendid outing lowered his season numbers to just a 3.72 ERA and 1.13 WHIP. Those ratios are certainly very appeasing to those in the fantasy baseball community and the fact Pivetta is now into his second month pitching well adds to the legitimacy of what we are seeing out of the guy. What is also key here is that after Pivetta suffered an epic beatdown on May 4th to the tune of 6 earned runs in just 1 IP, he came right back and tossed 12 total innings spanning two starts in giving up just two total earned runs. That shows Pivetta has the crucial skills of both putting ugly starts behind him (speaking to good mental acumen) but also the ability to combat any tendencies hitters figured out against him Being able to adjust on the fly is so important for a young hurler and Pivetta seems very capable on that front.

Now the question of course is whether or not Pivetta can continues to pitch at the nice level he has been out for most of this season. Checking out the advanced metrics holds the clue and there are some good things there. The first is that Pivetta's 10.37 K/9 is making Aaron Nola proud and Pivetta is also showing impressive control as shown by his 2.15 BB/9. Operating in a massive home runs park, Pivetta's HR/9 of 0.98 is decent enough as well which again speaks to how he is not beating himself. Add all those up and you gave a legitimate pitcher who is yielding legitimate results. As a matter of fact, Pivetta should be getting even better ratio results as his FIP (3.10) and XFIP (3.29) bear out. The bottom line here is that we are seeing a very impressive breakout from Pivetta and other than concerns about fatigue in August, there is nothing really speaking to any sort of giveback on the numbers this season.